Whatever We Deny or Embrace
by Michelle My Belle
Summary: Dueling introspection by Red and Liz as they attempt to flee DC, change Liz's appearance and deal with a brand new proximity to one another.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: As most stories do, this one began with a simple comment that sparked an idea. This time, it happened to be my question about the show's clothing budget given that Lizzie wore a stretched out men's tank undershirt for most of the premier. Thanks to the incomparable_ **HasFar2Go** _for unknowingly prompting me with, "Maybe it's Red's tank?" The rest is history._

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"It'll be fine," he reassured, his smooth, buttery deep voice floating around her in the compartment of their nondescript van, now their getaway vehicle.

"They'll set a perimeter," she said, crawling back in her mind through years of training. Textbooks. Field exercises.

 _You're thinking like a cop,_ he had said.

But that was a lifetime ago. A lifetime of upset, triumph, heartache and healing all shoved into two years.

Two years as...partners, yet in so many ways he remained a mystery to her. A beautiful mystery shrouded in elegantly tailored suiting complete with the most expensive woolen hats that money can buy.

She turned to look out the window on her side, steeling herself for the moments that would surely follow while he sat close enough to feel the rise and fall of her body with her quickened breath, close enough to smell the fear manifesting itself as a light sheen across her brow. The over-analytical side of her needed to know if he noticed but she quickly denied that he saw the situation and his proximity to her for anything other than what it was on the surface. But if he could just…

"You'll need to put that on," he instructed, tossing a vest in her lap.

The weight of the Kevlar seemed to snap her into her usual hyper-awareness, assessing the situation, profiling all the possible paths they could choose next to get to safety. Her safety, though, was something Raymond Reddington staked his life on and surely he had contingencies in place for such a time as this. She needed to trust he had assets and a plan; he needed her to trust his experience but moreover, he needed her to know that out of his undying love for her, however she viewed that love, that he would move hell with his bare hands to keep her safe.

All they needed was a little time.

He offered his hand to help her out of the van, doing everything to avert his eyes from meeting her own. He was off his game for perhaps the first time in twenty years. Not two steps ahead, not even one. But he had to have her confidence right now; he had to know she believed in him to get them out of this fortress of a city and into the wild where they could run free and far from the tightening grip of the bureau. Lizzie found herself looking at Red more openly in latter days and among other things, she had the ability to see when he feared he would fail her. She knew it was one emotion he nearly killed himself to keep in check. He couldn't allow her to see that.

Not today.

The plush bachelor's flat was worlds away from the sub-level bunker of the downtown bar with its dusty bottles of Cabernet in reserve, musty cot and meals-ready-to-eat leftover from whatever conflict Red had last served in. How the Naval enlisted survived on that garbage was completely beyond her and one of the many failures of the US government on behalf of its servants. It was, however, entirely problematic actually eating an MRE with the knowledge that every law enforcement agency had now made its number one priority to capture her and with her, Red. Her stomach cranked into knot upon knot while Red, in yet another display of how he had mastered control of his nerves over the years, cleaned his plate and poured a second glass of the questionable wine. She could only stare at her glass, watching the buttery tannins coat the side of the cheap stemware, catching the image of her own reflection in the cup and finding it redolent of her days with the Baltimore Police Department. When their escape from the underground hideout to the contemporary loft apartment became more imminent, turning Red's initial estimate of two weeks into a mere two hours, she was all the more glad the only thing coursing through her veins was pure adrenaline. At least, that was the name she would give it for now.

The hastily prepared go-bag held little reinforcements for a female. Red had been on the run so long and so long alone that he had become accustomed to doing things routinely for himself. He had longed for the day when he would be able to protect and care for Lizzie without the interference of her imposter ex-husband, he had just never imagined it would come so soon, and with such dark portend.

None of that mattered now. She needed him. Not just a man, not just a protector, but Red. Uniquely qualified for the job as the one person alive that would sacrifice his very breath, his life even, for her; specifically qualified in deflection, disguise and disappearance.

He rummaged through the duffel, stalling for time and seeking any items he had that could possibly help her. He located and handed her the boxed hair color along with several sets of rubber gloves, a fresh white towel, plastic sheeting and a drawstring garbage bag. She quirked her head to the right, curiously pinching her eyebrows together at the items he happened to have in this mysterious bag.

"Everything goes in the bag when you're done. We leave nothing behind," he instructed, his training going into overdrive, Naval Intelligence precepts etched in his memory.

"My clothes…I…," she uttered, fingering the edge of the stiff polyester uniform blues. She looked down then, unable to string her racing thoughts into anything worth giving breath to.

He cleared his throat softly, scanning fruitlessly around the apartment and shifting the balance of his weight from one foot to the other. She'd seen him stall before, but this was something new. Finally, he took one calculated step backward and then another, squaring his shoulders to her, his back facing the stark white wall behind him. Avoiding her eyes, he opened the buttons of his own uniform shirt, opening the sleeves and then tugging them off over his hands until he had both arms removed. It was dizzying and spellbinding and all happening in what seemed to be a slowed down version of time. She forced her eyes from following his hands down his shirt to instead seek his out and as if he could feel the magnetism of her gaze, he slowly lifted his eyes from the floor to connect with hers. Before she could stop herself, she allowed her body to take over, carrying her forward, closer to him as he pushed the shirt the rest of the way off of his broad shoulders.

Without missing a beat and before she could further invade his space, he peeled off his white undershirt, handing it to her with a sad and regretful look on his face. Of all the things he should regret right now, he chose to focus on the minutia of a nondescript garment. In his dreams of longing and desire, he clothed Elizabeth Keen in only the very finest, the most exquisite and lovely pieces that complimented her piercing blue eyes, the gentle creaminess of her skin and the satisfying curve of her breast. In all of those dreams, he never imagined handing her a worn, men's undershirt when she deserved so much more. He had, unfortunately, discounted having to actually witness her wearing it.

Nonetheless, his overdeveloped situational awareness was forcing him to accept the change in status quo - probably forever.

"What's this for?" she quizzed, still holding the shirt in the same posture as when he had given it to her.

"You need to change more than just the color of your hair," he swallowed hard, casting his eyes to the floor once again, avoiding whatever expression she might wear in response. She nodded slowly with a grimace, the gravity of their situation still coming together in pieces.

Clutching his offerings to her chest, she weaved her way through pristine, stiff leather furniture and glass topped end tables to the bathroom. She paused at the threshold, looking back over her shoulder one last time. There was no question they were in the midst of a storm, but there was something else in the atmosphere between them - a feeling that everything was about to change. He caught her reflection in the smoky glass one last time before she turned and closed the door behind her.

But she had stopped to look at him.

And all he could do was think about her and how his thin shirt would slide down over her curves, stopping briefly to appreciate her breasts before skimming down over her belly and stopping at her waist. He imagined her scent overwhelming his senses as he ran his nose up the inside of her thigh, up past the place that made her thighs twitch and finally to the hem of that shirt. Would she laugh as he pushed the shirt up to her chin with only his teeth? Would she bite her lip instead? No, she was the loud type; the kind of woman that pushed her head back into pillows while ecstasy escaped from her lips.

Through the door, she could hear him begin to run through next steps interspersed with stunted commentary about the mid-afternoon news, their poor choice of anchor and what the choice of wardrobe said about their clothing budget. She wondered if he was covering the awkwardness with his usual attempts at humor, but in any case, the distraction was welcome. She listened to his voice more than she heard what he was saying, her mind clouded with the image of his bare chest, rising and falling in time the way hers had in the van. The way it was now.

As quickly as she could, she rid herself of the borrowed DC Metro uniform. It was the first item she tossed into the garbage bag Red had given her. She pulled the soft white tank over her head, pausing briefly to let the neckline brush over her face and linger while she breathed him in, relishing in the scent that was uniquely Red. The spicy sandalwood was heady and intoxicating. In any other circumstance, she would allow herself a moan of pleasure and in any other circumstances, she'd not feel guilty for imagining the way he would smell right after sex; all sweat and musk, his essence enveloping her like the pillows and blankets strewn around them.

Fitting it down over her curves, she realized it still held the warmth of his body. She pressed her back to the closed door, taking her time running her hands over her breasts, up her neck and into her hair. For just a moment, she couldn't deny herself the fantasy of Red, walking her back into a wall and stepping in between her parted legs, pinning her wrists down with his strong hands while the tip of his nose ran up the length of her bare neck. Looking at him ever again without these images flashing before her would surely prove problematic.

He had his own problems to consider, like how to get her out of the mess that she had unwittingly dragged the both of them into. There was something even worse than being on the wrong side of the law and she realized that it was being on the run from people you used to call your friends. She didn't go there to kill the Attorney General. But he just wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop going on and on about everyone in her life that he would make suffer for her choices and it was trying and hurtful until he found the pressure point, and squeezed.

Treason charges and the death penalty.

Just thinking about it made her insides knot. It could have easily ended so differently. She realized, had she not gone to Cooper for help, none of this would have happened. She wouldn't have heard Connolley's plans for everyone on the team: for herself, for Red, even Aram was not exempt from threats he vowed he'd make good on. But Red. Red would certainly fare the worst. He had, in the Director's own words, 'it coming to him.' That sentiment made her wonder. For someone to have such a directed passion about a person, to have such a specific agenda and a deep-seated need to see him suffer, there had to be a history and way more than Red had ever let on.

And now, she stood before a reflection she hardly recognized, giving her blonde locks a shake and a slanted glance. Not the first time she went drastic with color and by the looks of things, not the last. Throwing the towel over her shoulder, she swallowed hard, laid her hand to the door and with a deep breath, pushed it open.

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TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

"You know, Lizzie," he started headlong into another magnificent and somewhat tall tale, unaware that she was lurking in the doorway, wrestling with her hesitancy to enter the room.

He saw her reflection in the smoky mirror first, like a mirage wafting toward him. Frozen, he stood just watching her move gracefully, trying to process the reality of the image and how he could, how he should respond. From early on in their adult relationship, he never denied his feelings for her when he was alone with his thoughts and his scotch. In her presence, he embraced the terrible tyranny of 'or.' He could tell her everything _or_ he could withhold that which would flay him down to sinew and bone. He could be her partner _or_ her lover. Reason took over when she was near. He could never have both.

Too many moments more and she would become suspicious. Feigning surprise at her entrance, he turned quickly and wore the awe and surrender that he first felt the moment she descended those stairs, lit from above like the angel of mercy she was. Only this time, the shackles holding him down were fear and the fear of regret.

She caught his eyes quickly, looking for acknowledgement or affirmation or something to get her damned feet back on the earth again; but seeing nothing of the sort, finally blurted out, "what do you think?"

She was exquisite. Her flaxen locks radiated light and warmth, setting her eyes and skin aglow. He kept his eyes trained on hers, but couldn't help but notice how his thin tank flattered her curves in exactly the right places. Usually, he fantasized about her wearing nothing but his shirtsleeves and sometimes his charcoal wool fedora; but that was quickly being replaced with the new reality of his undershirt gracing her slight figure over visible black lacy lingerie. Even the gowns she wore the few times they attended formal functions undercover were less revealing than this makeshift outfit of a man's shirt and ripped jeans.

Smiling, she looked expectantly at him while he seemed pleased or stunned at the difference in her appearance, the dichotomy balancing precariously on a slim razor's edge. An eloquent, learned man, Raymond Reddington was practiced at and well known for being a beacon in a dark world of his boorish, poorly spoken contemporaries. But as his fantasy stood living and breathing before him, vibrant and vivacious, he was suddenly a man without his faculties and at a most inopportune time. He chewed on empty words that would not come, nearly stammering in silence as he begged for control of the moment.

He was never truly speechless, in fact, at certain times he had way too much to say for her liking. She wished for one of those times, a time where he could fill the space between with his articulacy and kill the silence that was stretching on in an unusual and increasingly awkward fashion. The more she tried to see through him, to see into his thoughts, the more her wandering thoughts took her places she had banished as possible. She pinched her brows together, nervously waiting and wondering when he would respond to her, his silence often signaling a deflection technique of his she was all too familiar with.

"Lizzie…" he finally got out in a rasp reminiscent of the word he thought would be his last at the hand of Yabaari.

"Is it that bad? Maybe I should have gone red," she wondered aloud, then watching the color drain from his face at that thought.

"No!" he quickly corrected her. "No," he repeated in more suppressed voice. "The blonde looks nice. What I mean is, it's a nice change," he covered as he took a seat on the sofa.

A small smirk of success curled at the corners of her lips. A woman knows when a man likes what he sees. Even if she was unprepared for that reaction from Red, it was a clear and unmistakable reaction, nonetheless. She picked up a newspaper off the coffee table and took a sofa seat at the end opposite Red. A few moments of charged silence passed before she saw in her peripheral vision that he was not relaxed, sitting stiffly and glancing at his watch with increasing frequency.

He cleared his throat and looked around the room nervously, finally settling his eyes on the ground around his feet. "Well. Your transport will be arriving soon. Your window is small, so you can't keep them waiting."

"Wait, you're not coming with me?" she pled, her head spinning around, seeking out his downcast eyes as if willing them to look at her.

"We have to split up, Lizzie. There's a greater chance of one of us slipping beyond the perimeter if we do."

"But I can't do this without you," she protested, her voice and trembling body clamoring for his attention, his understanding, hell – anything he would give her.

He lifted his eyes to hers and lowered his voice. "You _can_ do this. You must."

She was on her feet now, her hands perched assertively on her hips as she paced in between his rigidly bent legs and the coffee table.

"I don't understand! I called _you_ for help. Not Ressler. Not even Tom. I called you! And now you're going to abandon me?"

At that, he rose sharply, taking a firm hold of her shoulders and turning her squarely toward him. His nose, his breath, his eyes _, God his eyes,_ were mere inches from her own, radiating warmth. _Probably from sheer ire,_ she thought initially but the more his unwavering focus trained on her, the more she realized she had profiled the whole thing wrong. It wasn't her first occasion to be upside-down on Red and his intentions. Somewhere in the years of training, exams and degrees, a misfire prevented her from seeing his motives as anything but dutiful. Only after her fog surrounding Tom had cleared did she gain the ability to step back and see more of the big picture, beginning to address the niggling in her mind that begged to be acknowledged: Red had given up duty to anything long ago. His only allegiance now was to his heart.

"Elizabeth, listen to me. I would never abandon you. Never. But if you think that I am going to miss the one opportunity we have to pick up a half-a-mile of boat speed, then you're out of your mind."

"Boat speed?" she quizzed, her annoyance quickly rising in her tone. "Red, now is _not_ the time – "

"This would be easier to explain if you sailed sailboats," he cut in before she could begin to lecture him about the timing of his dive into another story.

She exhaled forcibly, rolling her eyes before turning back to question him further, but he started into his story before she could get a word in.

"When I was a teenager, I crewed Phillips Andover to Newport on a 42-foot sloop called Clarice. There was a piece of kelp stuck to the hull, and even though it wasn't very large, you don't want anything stuck to the hull. So, I take a boat hook on a pole and I stick it in the water and I try to get the kelp off, when seven guys start screaming at me."

She gave him a quizzical look, retaining the last shred of calm she could muster out of respect for his need to pull out fables from the archive of his youth.

"Because, now the pole is causing more drag than the kelp was. See, what you gotta do is drop the pole in and let the water lift it out in a windmill motion. Drop it in, lift it out. In, and out, until you got it." In seeing her utter confusion at how he could possibly be telling this story at a time like this, he finished, "you'll be faster, more agile without me dragging you down."

She stared at him in stunned silence, her mouth marginally agape. Despite the professional boundaries she desperately tried to keep in place with him for the last two years, she now found herself entrenched in an international battle between a defunct foreign counterintelligence agency and her ex-employer. All she had in her arsenal was Red, her Sig-Sauer service revolver and a makeover. Without Red, she was sunk.

"So, this is how this ends," she said resignedly. "The Cabal gets me, gets even with you for exposing them. And you disappear."

"Elizabeth, listen to me. They will not touch you. The Cabal knows doing so would mean answering to me."

"You're telling me that the Cabal knows I shot and killed one of their US government moles, knows who my mother was and yet they won't touch me? I know I look like her. You won't admit it, but I know. I saw the picture in your apartment. And I know there was something between the two of you that you refuse to tell me. But you don't have to. The way you looked at me after I changed my hair told me everything I needed to know," she bit icily, hurt and willing to spit even conjecture at him to give herself even a marginal feeling of advantage.

"You're mistaken about my connection to your mother, though I don't think I'm telling you something you don't already know."

"But you'll never tell me! Every time I get close to the truth about something you cover it in misdirection or only reveal a piece of this grand puzzle you're using me to assemble," her voice was quivering now, never hoping so much that she was wrong about a thing.

"Lizzie, I won't lie to you. Yes, you bear some resemblance to your mother. But that's not why I'm in your life. That's not why I care about you," he admitted, drawing her eyes and her suddenly softened expression to meet the seriousness in his gaze. "I care about you _in spite_ of your resemblance to her. Katerina and I weren't lovers. She was my informant while I was in US counter-intelligence. I was considered the KGB's greatest enemy at the time for the damage I was doing with her intel, but then, she double crossed me."

He rubbed at his brow with unease, a small weight lifted from telling her about the true nature of his relationship with Katerina, yet also feeling like he had revealed too much about his feelings for Lizzie. If he could just keep talking and get further away from it, perhaps she would forget.

"God, that feels like ages ago. I had no concept what a real enemy looked like then. But I do now. I've had to live with what she did to you, me and your father in silence for almost thirty years. And you see, having protected that secret, having protected you from them, you can't believe I would give all that up now – for any reason."

"I can't believe all this time you've been harboring this alone. Even you can't deny, we've gotten…close. And you've had to look at me every day reminded of what she did to you. What the Cabal did to your family. And yet you stayed," she trailed off as her innermost questions and thoughts poured out of her mouth, interrupted by the buzzing of Red's phone with a message.

"Your driver is here," he said, looking down into the phone, avoiding her sure disappointment in the arrangement.

She crossed to him in a quick, elongated steps. Gripping both of his arms, she hurried, "before I go. What am I to you, what are we to each other? Give me this one thing. What if I never see you again?"

He reached out and gripped her waist, the warmth of his solid hands seeping through the thin shirt and overcoming her with a euphoric feeling of love and safety.

"We will see each other again. Soon. And Lizzie, when this is all over?" He leaned in to her ear and whispered, "ask me again."

With a deep breath and a nod, she turned to leave, his eyes on her until she was out of his sight.

Huddled in the shipping crate, she buried her nose in his shirt again, breathing him in once again. Over the years, she had come to recognize that everything about his presence grounded her, like a touchstone. The striking colors in his suiting, the angle his hat perched on his head, his cologne, everything about him that was so unusual and distinctive had become a familiar home where she could let her guard down. In the hours that followed, she would cling to his shirt and the promise that they would see each other again.

That night, in the dark, in the quiet, she pulled the neck of his shirt to her nose and drifted softly off to sleep.

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Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. The title of this work isn't even mine. (Shout out, Pat Benetar.) Furthermore, the section about Red rowing crew isn't mine and was retooled and borrowed from Bruno Gianelli's speech in The West Wing. Knowing James went to a preparatory school in Boston, it just fit too nicely to not use it. Thanks for reading and reviewing!


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